"UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA" SUMMER CREATIVE TRAINING
#performance, #dance, #movementresearch, #improv, #creation
And if you weren’t looking for what looks good, what’s nice? What will the audience like? How will teachers and professionals react? What will the others think about? What if you did what you personally like? If you were concerned with what you wanted to say instead of how? If you tried something completely new? If instead of avoiding, you were specifically looking for the risky, the unusual, the unknown, the weird, the uncanny? What if you didn’t throw away your "strange" ideas, but try them one by one? What if you stepped out of your comfort zone, overcame barriers, break rules? Come to our Summer Creative Training and try everything you haven’t had time or haven’t had the courage to do so far!
Structured with movement research, creative exercises, dialogues and presentations, this training is helping you to push yourself out of your comfort zone, transform your imagination and open yourself to new forms, aesthetics and inspirations. During the sessions you will use different techniques and tools to generate both new works and seeds for the work you are in the midst of creating. You will create performances, solo and groups choreographies, do improvisation and realize creative movement exercises within an immersive, intensive and experimental context. So as to stimulate different parts of the brain and the body, you will move back and forth between performance tasks, creative writing and drawing exercises. You will also receive one-on-one mentoring (including critical feed-back in the analysis, application of the method and the clarity of details) during the development of your own original artwork.
ACTIVITIES
Performance, dance, narrating and composing through structured-improvisation; thematic movement research; developing scores for solo and group choreographies; discussions, screenings and readings from texts by writers, theorists, artists; creative writing in different form (poetry, manifest, comics, diary, fiction, critics...) making exercises and creative tasks in other medium, searching through storytelling, personal narratives, historical material, archives and divers audiovisual resources.
CLASS DESCRIPTION
At the beginning of each session, through joint analysis of historic and contemporary examples, participants will approach different discourses connected to the topic. Building on these discussions as well as on selected readings, creative exercises and tasks, participants will be guided to explore various approaches and elaborate thematic performances, create choreographies, research movement material, write texts and make images (drawings, photo, video, GIF). With embracing multiple media, participants will be invited to challenge artistic conventions and traditional canons, propose new forms, aesthetics, alternative, experimental solutions in order to defy norms, undermine tropes, express criticism of structural and ideological concerns.
PARTICIPATION
FEE
Free of charge
VENUE
A4 Zero Space (Bratislava, SK)
SESSIONS & DATES
TOPICS
Who is the boss? - June 7-9
Why are people so willing to humiliate people from other social groups? What are the factors responsible for psychological and physical aggression? What are those aspects of human nature which lead to social exclusion? What are the cognitive, affective and motivational components of intergroup brutality? How can we resist, protest and fight against domination and oppression? What are our tools and how can we use them? Through discussions (based on readings, life experience, self-examination) and practical application (creation of performance, dance, theater, acting, storytelling, drawing, writing, painting, collage, photo, video, installation art, multimedia art…) we will trace the history of different forms and levels of domination, including institutional, interpersonal, and unconscious, their similarities and differences. We will discuss the experience of living with alienation, whether it is due to race, sex, sexuality, class, ethnicity, religion or an intersection of these, the ways in which the theoretical texts we discovered relate to our personal experiences and to socio-political contexts, and we create in response concrete actions, activist performances and politically engaged body-works.
Fear and the Unknown - June 10-11
Through discussions (based on readings, life experience, self-examination) and practical application (movement research, performance, choreography making, drawing, creative writing, photography, video…) you will be introduced to the topic of fear, stress, anxiety and paranoia. We will explore a variety of questions, such as: What are people most afraid of? What are our common fears? Why fear arises and how it can be combatted? What are the causes and cures of fear and anxiety? What is panic? Why the globalized world has become paralyzed by fear? How have we arrived in an age of fear? How fear became an integral aspect of our political discourses, security apparatuses, social and cultural narratives? How fear contributes to the constructions of our personal identity and our relationship with the others? What role does fear and threat play in contemporary societies?
Impossible desires - June 12-13
Through discussions (based on readings, life experience, self-examination) and practical application (movement research, performance, choreography making…) this module introduces you to the topic of desire, love, sexuality and radical intimacy. We will draw on historical, sociological, religious, feminist and philosophical work to shed critical light on a variety of questions, including: What is desire? What kind of desire do we know? Is there a hierarchy of desire which values some desires and denigrates others? Who and what shapes our desire and does desire shape our lives? Are we enslaved by our desire or by the desire of others? What is the relationship between human desire and obsession? Are we aware of our religious and socio-cultural heritage and their influences on our desire? What is moral, what is normal, and who is empowered to decide it? What are the consequences of satisfying desire? Are we trying to change who we are and trying to turn away from our desires? How are our understandings of masculinity and femininity tied in with what we believe about desire?
TEACHER
Anna graduated from École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris-Cergy (FR), and is now a visual artist and performance maker. Her work blurs the boundaries between choreography, image and object, with the body and movement as central elements of expression. By combining performing arts, visual arts, education and curatorial practices, Anna’s work transgresses normative discourses, challenges gender boundaries, systems of representation and beauty standards. Anna also considers education and community building activities as part of her main artistic medium. At the intersection of a workshop and an interactive performance, she creates and curates non-judgmental and non-hierarchical political spaces for moving, experimental contexts for producing knowledges and tools, sharing learning and unlearning processes, developing new forms of relational aesthetics based on inclusion, connection, co-creation and solidarity.
Since 2016 Anna has presented her work in major cities and small towns alike, in formal and informal, indoor and outdoor spaces (E-Werk Kulzurzentrum (DE), Théâtre National de Syldavie (FR), Piccolo Teatro (DE), Modern Art Museum (AM), Musée National de l'histoire de l'immigration (FR) etc.). During 2020 she has been a resident artist at the University of Artois (FR), Mediterranean Dance Center (HT) and ZFinMalta (MT). In 2021 she will collaborate with Dance City Theater (UK), A4 (SK) and the Abbaye de Maubuisson (FR). Anna has also a significant teaching experience in interdisciplinary art education, combining performance and visual art practices (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (AT), Conservatory of Dance and Choreography (AM), University of Artois (FR), University of Novi Sad (SRB), ZfinMalta National Dance Company (MT), Mediterranean Dance Center (HT), Dance City Theater Newcastle (GB)...).
She also the founder of the "School of Disobedience", which is an experimental and transdisciplinary art school and fight club based on questioning, criticizing, unlearning, protesting, resisting and defying.
www.annaadam.net
www.instagram.com/AnnaAdamStudio
ORGNAIZATION
The "Summer Creative Training" is co-organized between A4 and the company Gray Box, and supported by VARP Performing Arts Residency Program and the Hungarian Ministry of Culture.
REGISTRATION PROCESS
Structured with movement research, creative exercises, dialogues and presentations, this training is helping you to push yourself out of your comfort zone, transform your imagination and open yourself to new forms, aesthetics and inspirations. During the sessions you will use different techniques and tools to generate both new works and seeds for the work you are in the midst of creating. You will create performances, solo and groups choreographies, do improvisation and realize creative movement exercises within an immersive, intensive and experimental context. So as to stimulate different parts of the brain and the body, you will move back and forth between performance tasks, creative writing and drawing exercises. You will also receive one-on-one mentoring (including critical feed-back in the analysis, application of the method and the clarity of details) during the development of your own original artwork.
ACTIVITIES
Performance, dance, narrating and composing through structured-improvisation; thematic movement research; developing scores for solo and group choreographies; discussions, screenings and readings from texts by writers, theorists, artists; creative writing in different form (poetry, manifest, comics, diary, fiction, critics...) making exercises and creative tasks in other medium, searching through storytelling, personal narratives, historical material, archives and divers audiovisual resources.
CLASS DESCRIPTION
At the beginning of each session, through joint analysis of historic and contemporary examples, participants will approach different discourses connected to the topic. Building on these discussions as well as on selected readings, creative exercises and tasks, participants will be guided to explore various approaches and elaborate thematic performances, create choreographies, research movement material, write texts and make images (drawings, photo, video, GIF). With embracing multiple media, participants will be invited to challenge artistic conventions and traditional canons, propose new forms, aesthetics, alternative, experimental solutions in order to defy norms, undermine tropes, express criticism of structural and ideological concerns.
PARTICIPATION
- Our Summer Creative Training is composed of nine sessions. Attendees don't have to follow all classes, but they can register independently for each session.
- The training is open for creative people (dancer, choreographer, artist, designer, activist, cultural worker, writer…) with or without any degree, or still student
- Apply here
FEE
Free of charge
VENUE
A4 Zero Space (Bratislava, SK)
SESSIONS & DATES
- SESSION 1: June 7, 10-13h: Who is the boss? - Part 1. Topics: oppression, domination
- SESSION 2: June 8, 10-13h: Who is the boss? - Part 2. Topics: leadership, hierarchy, exploitation
- SESSION 3: June 9, 10-13h: Who is the boss? - Part 3. Topics: marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, violence
- SESSION 4: June 10, 10-13h: Fear and the Unknown - Part 1. Topics: fear, anxiety, panic
- SESSION 5: June 11, 10-13h: Fear and the Unknown - Part 2. Topics: stress, paranoia, self-sabotage
- SESSION 6: June 12, 10-13h: Impossible Desires - Part 1. Topics: desire
- SESSION 7: June 12, 14-17h: Impossible Desires - Part 2. Topics: love
- SESSION 8: June 13, 10-13h: Impossible Desires - Part 3. Topics: sexualities, radical intimacy
- SESSION 9: June 13, 14-17h: Impossible Desires - Part 4. Topics: body politics, confessions, personal mythologies
TOPICS
Who is the boss? - June 7-9
Why are people so willing to humiliate people from other social groups? What are the factors responsible for psychological and physical aggression? What are those aspects of human nature which lead to social exclusion? What are the cognitive, affective and motivational components of intergroup brutality? How can we resist, protest and fight against domination and oppression? What are our tools and how can we use them? Through discussions (based on readings, life experience, self-examination) and practical application (creation of performance, dance, theater, acting, storytelling, drawing, writing, painting, collage, photo, video, installation art, multimedia art…) we will trace the history of different forms and levels of domination, including institutional, interpersonal, and unconscious, their similarities and differences. We will discuss the experience of living with alienation, whether it is due to race, sex, sexuality, class, ethnicity, religion or an intersection of these, the ways in which the theoretical texts we discovered relate to our personal experiences and to socio-political contexts, and we create in response concrete actions, activist performances and politically engaged body-works.
Fear and the Unknown - June 10-11
Through discussions (based on readings, life experience, self-examination) and practical application (movement research, performance, choreography making, drawing, creative writing, photography, video…) you will be introduced to the topic of fear, stress, anxiety and paranoia. We will explore a variety of questions, such as: What are people most afraid of? What are our common fears? Why fear arises and how it can be combatted? What are the causes and cures of fear and anxiety? What is panic? Why the globalized world has become paralyzed by fear? How have we arrived in an age of fear? How fear became an integral aspect of our political discourses, security apparatuses, social and cultural narratives? How fear contributes to the constructions of our personal identity and our relationship with the others? What role does fear and threat play in contemporary societies?
Impossible desires - June 12-13
Through discussions (based on readings, life experience, self-examination) and practical application (movement research, performance, choreography making…) this module introduces you to the topic of desire, love, sexuality and radical intimacy. We will draw on historical, sociological, religious, feminist and philosophical work to shed critical light on a variety of questions, including: What is desire? What kind of desire do we know? Is there a hierarchy of desire which values some desires and denigrates others? Who and what shapes our desire and does desire shape our lives? Are we enslaved by our desire or by the desire of others? What is the relationship between human desire and obsession? Are we aware of our religious and socio-cultural heritage and their influences on our desire? What is moral, what is normal, and who is empowered to decide it? What are the consequences of satisfying desire? Are we trying to change who we are and trying to turn away from our desires? How are our understandings of masculinity and femininity tied in with what we believe about desire?
TEACHER
Anna graduated from École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Paris-Cergy (FR), and is now a visual artist and performance maker. Her work blurs the boundaries between choreography, image and object, with the body and movement as central elements of expression. By combining performing arts, visual arts, education and curatorial practices, Anna’s work transgresses normative discourses, challenges gender boundaries, systems of representation and beauty standards. Anna also considers education and community building activities as part of her main artistic medium. At the intersection of a workshop and an interactive performance, she creates and curates non-judgmental and non-hierarchical political spaces for moving, experimental contexts for producing knowledges and tools, sharing learning and unlearning processes, developing new forms of relational aesthetics based on inclusion, connection, co-creation and solidarity.
Since 2016 Anna has presented her work in major cities and small towns alike, in formal and informal, indoor and outdoor spaces (E-Werk Kulzurzentrum (DE), Théâtre National de Syldavie (FR), Piccolo Teatro (DE), Modern Art Museum (AM), Musée National de l'histoire de l'immigration (FR) etc.). During 2020 she has been a resident artist at the University of Artois (FR), Mediterranean Dance Center (HT) and ZFinMalta (MT). In 2021 she will collaborate with Dance City Theater (UK), A4 (SK) and the Abbaye de Maubuisson (FR). Anna has also a significant teaching experience in interdisciplinary art education, combining performance and visual art practices (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (AT), Conservatory of Dance and Choreography (AM), University of Artois (FR), University of Novi Sad (SRB), ZfinMalta National Dance Company (MT), Mediterranean Dance Center (HT), Dance City Theater Newcastle (GB)...).
She also the founder of the "School of Disobedience", which is an experimental and transdisciplinary art school and fight club based on questioning, criticizing, unlearning, protesting, resisting and defying.
www.annaadam.net
www.instagram.com/AnnaAdamStudio
ORGNAIZATION
The "Summer Creative Training" is co-organized between A4 and the company Gray Box, and supported by VARP Performing Arts Residency Program and the Hungarian Ministry of Culture.
REGISTRATION PROCESS
